Surgical systems, such as phacoemulsification systems for ophthalmic surgery, typically involve complex user interfaces that require one or both hands to manipulate. However, the primary user of such systems, the surgeon, typically has his/her hands fully occupied with the actual surgical procedure. In addition, the surgeon is typically located in a sterile field, and the surgical equipment may not be within the field. Thus, changes to the settings and configuration of the surgical equipment by the surgeon would require the surgeon to break the sterile field, use an indirect mechanism to interact with the equipment's user interface, or ask another person present in the operating room (such as a nurse) to make changes on his/her behalf.
To address this issue, equipment manufacturers have developed foot pedal interfaces that allow the surgeon to utilize his/her feet to manipulate the device. However, on medical systems with large numbers of configurations and settings, the foot pedal interface can become large, expensive and confusing to the user. One such complicated medical system known in the art is a phacoemulsification system, which removes the lens of an eye damaged by cataract. Turning to FIG. 1, a functional block diagram of a phacoemulsification system known in the art is shown. The system 100 may include a control unit 102 and a handpiece 104 operably coupled together. As shown in FIG. 2, the handpiece 104 may include a needle 106 for insertion into an eye E and a vibrating unit 108 that is configured to ultrasonically vibrate the needle 106. The vibrating unit 108, which may include, e.g., a piezoelectric crystal, vibrates the needle 106 according to one or more parameters, such as frequency, pulse width, shape, size, duty cycle, amplitude, and so on.
The phacoemulsification system 100 includes a microprocessor computer 110 which is operably connected to and controls the various other elements of the system. In a number of embodiments, the system 100 may include a variable speed pump 112, which can be a peristaltic and/or venture pump known in the art, for providing a vacuum source and a pulsed ultrasonic power source 114 for providing control outputs to a pump speed controller 116 and an ultrasonic power level controller 118. A vacuum sensor 120 provides an input to the computer 110 representing the vacuum level on the output side of the pump 112. Venting may be provided by a vent 122. The system 100 may also include a phase detector 124 for providing an input to the computer 100 that represents a phase shift between a sine wave representation of the voltage applied to the handpiece 104 and the resultant current into the handpiece 104. The functional representation of the system 100 also includes a system bus 126 to enable the various elements to be operably in communication with each other.
In operation, the control unit 102 supplies ultrasonic power to the phacoemulsification handpiece 104. An irrigation fluid source 128 provides irrigation fluid to the handpiece 104. The irrigation fluid and an ultrasonic pulse are applied by the handpiece 104 to a patient's eye E, which are indicated by arrows F and P, respectively. Aspiration of the eye E is achieved by means of the pump 112, which is indicated by arrow A.4 The handpiece 104 may include a switch 130 for enabling a surgeon to select an amplitude of electrical pulses to the handpiece 104 via the computer 110, the power level controller 118, and the ultrasonic power source 114. The operation of the system 100 in general may be in accordance with the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 6,629,948, which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
As shown above, there are many parameters of the system 100 controllable by the surgeon associated with the various functions described above, e.g., rate of aspiration, rate of irrigation, and ultrasonic power level. These parameters can be controllable by various interfaces, such as computer user interfaces and/or foot pedals/switches. An example computer user interface for system 100 is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/030,443 entitled “Phacoemulsification System Utilizing Graphical User Interfaces for Adjusting Pulse Parameters,” and an example foot pedal/switch control is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,983,901 entitled “Digital Electronic Foot Control for Medical Apparatus and the Like” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,268,624 entitled “Footpedal Control with User Selectable Operational Ranges.” All three of these references are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety into the present application. As mentioned above, these interfaces can become large, expensive, and confusing to the user.
One approach to simplify the interface(s) is to incorporate a voice controlled interface, wherein the surgeon can simply voice a command to control the various parameters; however, existing voice command interfaces require the operator to provide an additional confirmation command after the original voice command. For example, after an operator vocally requests setting ultrasonic power level, the system 100 generates a confirmation as to what the system 100 recognizes the operator's request to be, e.g., a computer message identifying the recognized command. Subsequently, the operator is then required to provide an additional vocal “yes” or “no” to confirm the request. An example of such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,970,457, which is herein incorporated by references in its entirety. One concern about this approach is that it may cause an undesirable delay in operation. Accordingly, an improved voice controlled interface is desirable.